individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" or
"genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new
individuals. "Crossover", the kind of recombination of
chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often
also used in GAs. Here, an offspring's chromosome is created
by joining segments choosen alternately from each of two
parents' chromosomes which are of fixed length.
GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in
which the chromosome can encode the values for the different
variables being optimised.
(1995-02-03)